SELF-HATING JEWS

Whenever a person throughout the world does something particularly distasteful, I always look to see if that person is Jewish. You can sometimes tell by the name. I don’t know why I do this, as I am in reality, not even remotely responsible. As a secular Jew living in a free and democratic society, it is difficult for me to understand the antagonism of fellow Jews, secular or religious, towards their own people. Jews, throughout their long history of exile and subordination, have continually faced the problem of being a small minority, dependent on the toleration of the majority in the country in which they reside. There is a desire to be like the others and escape from their Jewish roots. Self-hatred in cases such as these, manifest themselves in a loathing for one self, and other Jews, whose history has produced the conditions in which they live.

Some Conversos in Spain (Jews who were coerced to convert to Catholicism) took the lead in calling for the degradation and social segregation of Jews. Jews who embrace the world view of anti-Semites do not enhance their positions in the society in which they live. The Conversos were hunted down and persecuted by the Inquisition. German Jews, as close to being gentiles without actually converting, went to the gas chambers with their eastern European co-religionists and the communist Jews did not escape the Stalinist Gulag. At the end of the 19th century, the playwright and novelist Arthur Schnitzler was an acute observer of this psychopathology in Vienna. He recalled in his memoirs that “anti-Semitism did not succeed until the Jews began to sponsor it”. Revolutionary leftists like Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky and Rosa Luxemburg had to feverishly block out the needs of their own people in order to prove they were true internationalists.

Israel was not free of the self-hatred of Jews. Some Labour Zionists openly sympathized with the anti-Semitic critique of Judaism and with the dominant stereotype of Jewish parasitism that was widespread among socialists in general. As Zionists they blamed the “Galut”, the Jewish diaspora, for having turned the Jew into an eternal alien from their society.

The Israeli scholar Yehezkel Kaufman attacked the proposition that Jewish self-hatred could be a constructive path to salvation. There is nothing worse than to accept “the false image of a people burdened with the sense of their sin”. To these Jews in Palestine, whenever Arabs fought the British it was anti-colonialism but when Jews rose up against the British policy in Palestine it was terrorism. Arab nationalism was progressive while Zionism was invariably epitomized as imperialistic.

There is another concept of the Jews and their place in world history espoused by George Steiner, professor of comparative literature at Cambridge, Oxford and Geneva. “The true vocation of the Jews,” he says, “was to act as the cultural ferment of humanity rather than to establish a territorial state based on force of arms.” This ridiculous idea, which could be just below the foolishness of a “chosen people”, is bringing Israel in conflict with humanity. Jealousy is a powerful weapon, and the world does not need Jews, with or without a state, telling people what to do, or how to live.

Israel Shahak, a deceased Jerusalem chemistry professor, has stated that Israel is a terrorist state far more racist than Nazi Germany. He travelled the world to lecture on the evils of Zionism and the Jewish religion. The professor was hailed by Edward Said, an Arab professor, as a courageous dissident

The role of growing numbers of expatriate Israelis and Diaspora Jews such as Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein, in hate fests of incitement, has been escalating.

Anne Roiphe, a U.S. author, points out that the various Jewish groups in the West who support the Palestinian cause as if it were synonymous with peace or social justice generally show through their deeds and words that “they have empathy for all victims of violence, greed and abuse, except for the Jews.” They love all mankind but not their own people. Self-hating Jews, regardless of motive, provided valuable ammunition over the ages to the anti-Semites. Nothing has changed today.

WHY Millennials flock to Chicago`s non-Zionist synagogue

This article is added on Apr 11 2016–I could not believe what I was reading. A synagogue in Chicago has made it their policy not to discuss or support Israel within its halls. They feel that supporting Israel demands that they ignore social justice. The synagogue is looking for social justice for all the oppressed around the world including Palestinians. They appreciate the role of Israel in Jewish tradition, liturgy and identity, but they do not fuse Judaism with political nationalism. This is a synagogue associated with the American left and if things turn anti-Semitic in the U.S., yes that is possible , they will be the first to run to Israel for their safety. Where else?

About Me

I was born in Toronto in 1931 to a wonderful mother who divorced shortly before my birth. I owe a great deal of my success to her. I am Jewish but not at all religious, yet my culture plays an important part of my personality. I attended Harbord Collegiate and U. of T. Faculty of Pharmacy.